These four first films introduce all the concerns, aesthetic and thematic, that haunt Fessenden's
subsequent films.

THE ELIMINATOR(1979, 4 mins, S8mm, color) Fessenden's first film features a steel
blue '67 Firebird, and its unseen driver, out for a test drive and a run-in
with an innocent cyclist.

THE FIELD (1980, 7 mins, S8mm, color) A hangover-induced maudlin bit of film poetry made
remarkable by a live flute accompaniment by Geoffrey Kidde, who later would make
music for HABIT.

WHITE TRASH (1980, 7 mins, s8mm, color) A murder by conch-shell is followed by a stiff drink and the
dismemberment of the body, leaving us to ponder: what stories lie hidden in our street trash. Restaged
in 1993 for the opening sequence of RIVER OF GRASS.

LIFELINE (1981, 13 ins, S8mm, b&w and color) A concise history of "man," from the discovery of
fire to the bomb. With Fessenden as the enterprising species.